FAIRBORN — Wright State men’s basketball announced Clint Sargent as its new head coach on Thursday.

Former head coach Scott Nagy has left the school to take the same position at Southern Illinois, according to a press release by that university.

“Clint Sargent is everything we look for in our head coaches,” WSU interim director of athletics Joylynn Brown said in a statement. “His passion, his character and his excitement to lead our student-athletes – along with his knowledge of our program and what it takes to win in the Horizon League – are all evident. Coach Sargent is an incredible individual and there is no better role model for our student-athletes.”

Sargent was a player at South Dakota State playing for Nagy from 2008-11 and joined Nagy’s coaching staff in 2013. He came to Wright State with Nagy when he took the head coach position in 2016. Sargent had held Wright State’s associate head coach position for the past three seasons.

Sargent will be introduced at a media session on Friday. He will be the 10th head coach in program history.

Reports surfaced late Wednesday that Nagy was linked to the open position at Southern Illinois, but no formal announcement came until Thursday.

Nagy had been in charge of the Raiders program for the last eight seasons, winning the Horizon League Coach of the Year award three times.

His Wright State teams won 20 games in five seasons, compiling an 167-92 overall record and 107-47 in Horizon League play. He produced two Horizon League tournament titles, in 2018 and 2022, and won a regular season title three straight years from 2019-21. His 2022 team recorded the school’s first win in the NCAA Tournament in the First Four in Dayton.

Wright State went 18-14 during the 2023-24 season. The team finished in a tie for third in the league standings after being picked third in the preseason poll, losing in the second round of the league tournament. At the statistical database website kenpom.com, the Raiders ranked 34th in the country in offense this season with its highest-ever efficiency rating in the 27 seasons compiled. However, the team also ranked 348th in defense with its worst ever rating.

WSU is graduating two career 2,000-point scorers in Trey Calvin and Tanner Holden. Three players had reportedly already entered the transfer portal, including the team’s fifth-leading scorer 6 foot, 9 inch big man A. J. Braun, who confirmed his intentions to transfer in a social media post.

Contact Steven Wright at 937-502-4498 and follow on X (formerly Twitter) @Steven_Wright_.